In 2019 I held a B.Tech in Information Technology, an MBA, several years of experience on large telecom systems and a technology business that had been running since 2011. That year I also opened a Class 12 biology textbook and started studying it properly for the first time.

The route was specific. I completed Class 12 with Biology through the National Institute of Open Schooling in 2019 to 2020, qualified NEET in 2020, and joined the Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery programme at Sri Ganganagar Homoeopathic Medical College Hospital and Research Institute in April 2021. The academic programme ended in February 2026. Since March 2026 I have been in clinical internship.

People ask about the decision more than anything else I have done. This essay is less about the decision and more about what the process of starting again has taught me, because I think those lessons apply to anyone considering a serious change of field at any stage.

The first obstacle is identity, not difficulty

The biology itself was demanding but learnable. The harder adjustment was being a beginner again after years of being the person others came to with questions. In a technology meeting I knew the vocabulary, the history of the problem and the likely failure points. In a biology chapter I knew none of those things.

What helped was separating competence from identity. Being new to a subject says nothing about a person's ability; it describes where they are in that subject. Once I accepted that plainly, the embarrassment of basic questions disappeared, and basic questions turned out to be the fastest route forward.

For anyone changing fields

Your previous expertise is not wasted, and it is not a shortcut either. It gives you study habits and ways of thinking. It does not give you the new subject's knowledge. Both halves of that sentence matter.

What transferred from engineering

Some habits carried over directly and made medical study easier.

  • Structured notes. Engineering taught me to organise information hierarchically: systems, subsystems, components, interactions. Anatomy and physiology reward exactly that structure.
  • Comfort with large bodies of reference material. Years of documentation, standards and specifications made materia medica and medical textbooks less intimidating in scale.
  • Debugging as a way of thinking. Differential diagnosis has something in common with fault finding: list the possibilities, look for the evidence that separates them, and resist settling on the first explanation.
  • Project discipline. A five-year course is a long project. Breaking it into terms, subjects and weekly targets is familiar territory for anyone who has delivered software.

What did not transfer, and had to be learned

Other instincts had to be unlearned.

The biggest was the expectation of determinism. Software, for all its complexity, behaves the same way for the same inputs. People do not. Two patients with the same condition can describe it differently, respond differently and need different things. I have written about this separately in the context of individualisation, and it remains the most important shift in thinking that medical study required.

The second was the pace of certainty. In engineering you can often test an idea in minutes. In clinical work many questions are answered only by patient follow up over weeks. Learning to hold a working hypothesis, act carefully on it and revise it without frustration took time.

The third was the weight of responsibility. A software defect can usually be fixed and apologised for. A clinical mistake lands on a person. That reality changes how carefully you listen, how thoroughly you document and how readily you ask a senior for a second opinion.

Studying alongside running a business

The practical question people ask most is how the study fitted alongside technology work. The honest answer is that it required choices. Some opportunities were declined. More responsibility was delegated to capable colleagues. Time that used to go into meetings went into study.

Three things made it workable:

  1. A fixed weekly structure. Study time was scheduled first and protected, and business commitments were arranged around it rather than the reverse.
  2. Teams that did not depend on one person. The years of building organisations paid off, because the companies had people who could run day-to-day work.
  3. Clarity about the long term. Knowing why the study mattered made the short-term trade-offs easier to accept.

How the two fields now inform each other

The unexpected benefit of studying medicine after engineering is how often each field clarifies the other.

Clinical training has made me more sceptical of technology proposals that look good on a slide. Having seen how much of a consultation depends on noticing small, unrecorded details, I am wary of any system that claims to capture "everything that matters" in a form.

Engineering has made me more attentive to process in clinical settings: how records flow, where time is lost, how knowledge is looked up during a busy session. Those observations feed directly into my thinking about technology and healthcare convergence.

If you are considering starting again

I would not presume to advise anyone on whether to change careers. But for people seriously weighing it, a few points from my own experience may help.

  • Check the formal route carefully. Eligibility, entrance examinations and course requirements are specific, and they apply to everyone equally.
  • Expect the early months to feel slower than you would like. That feeling fades once the basic vocabulary is in place.
  • Keep what you already know close. The combination of fields is often where your most useful contribution will come from.
  • Be honest with the people around you about what the change will require of them as well as you.

Starting again did not mean leaving the first career behind. It meant carrying it into a new one.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

Can someone study medicine in India after an engineering degree?

Admission to undergraduate medical courses in India, including BHMS, is based on NEET and requires eligibility in Physics, Chemistry and Biology at Class 12 level, among other conditions. Candidates without Biology can complete it through recognised routes such as NIOS. Current eligibility rules should always be checked with the official authorities before applying.

How long is the BHMS course?

The BHMS degree in India is five and a half years in total, including a compulsory one-year clinical internship after the academic years.